


call this what you like

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [17]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Asexual Character, M/M, temporary fix au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-18 14:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: “Who was that?” Laura asks, something sly on her face that Niall quite wishes she’d wipe off.It twists Niall’s stomach anyway, to say, “My mate Harry,” when the truth of it is mates aren’t supposed to catch your breath in your chest talking to them.He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling, so he presses it away, deep into that box of other nasty feelings he doesn’t want, the ones that haunt him, theyou’re never going to get a gig, the you’re going to end up alone.The thing is, it doesn’t feel like a nasty feeling. It feels like something he should explore instead of hide, because it feels good. But he’s felt it, maybe just once or twice before, and nothing good’s ever come of it. Not a single person’s understood. So Niall locks it up tight and swears he’ll lose the key.[Or Harry’s looking for love in all the wrong places, and Niall’s not meant to be looking at all.]





	call this what you like

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingjustdont](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingjustdont/gifts).



> for the wonderful wonderful sasha, for whom i am so grateful for daily. i hope very dearly you like this. i like you a whole lot.
> 
> extra special thanks to sav for saving my whole life with this one.

The pub’s got a playlist going again, and Niall suggests, not for the first, fourth, or eighteenth time, they should get a house band.

“Then I’d have to pay them,” Bressie says, pouring out a pint with the kind of thoughtless expertise that comes with running a pub. “You don’t have to pay iTunes.”

Niall accepts the pint gratefully. “Technically you do.”

“But the starving artists on iTunes, chief. How will they get by without my 99p?”

“You’ve got a starving artist right here.”

“Hence the free pint. I’m not entirely heartless.” Brez winks and slides away to serve someone else.

“Bastard,” Niall calls after him, but it’s fond enough.

It’s a fair enough venue, good craic when the LIC are in, authentically Irish enough to nearly be a tourist trap, but too local for anyone to venture out to find it. It’s easy enough to make a new friend when he feels like being a novelty -- an honest to God Irishman in an Irish pub in the heart of London. It’s a good local.

Niall pulls off his hat, slides his hand through his hair, and settles it back on his head. He leans back against the bar to scan the crowded pub. There are enough vaguely familiar faces he could slip in with if he wanted a laugh. He’s assessing which one he wants to latch onto when he sees a lad he doesn’t recognize a couple stools away.

Niall presses his eyes to keep roaming, but they refuse. It must be the pure red of his floral shirt that’s got Niall fixated like a moth to a flame. Or it’s the curve of his shoulders, clearly expressing discomfort. Niall’s eyes flick to the bloke that’s talking to him, got a hand on Floral Shirt’s arm.

Floral Shirt keeps lifting a hand to run it through his hair, casually dislodging the guy’s hand every time. It lasts for about a minute before the hand is back. Even Niall’s uncomfortable by proxy at this point.

Before Niall can really think better of it, he turns his phone sideways and sketches out, _Help?_ onto that drawing thing for iMessage absolutely fucking no one needed except in instances like this. He waves his hand a little and puts the phone up.

Floral Shirt’s eyes double take over to Niall’s phone, his eyebrows scrunching like he can’t quite make out what it’s meant to say.

 _Help_ , Niall mouths along with a point to his message, then a point to the guy in front of him.

Floral Shirt nods quickly before turning his gaze back to the guy trying to feel him up. He runs a hand through his hair again. It’s not doing much but making his hair look like wild uncut grass.

Niall slides off his stool and nearly wedges himself between Floral Shirt and the bloke who can’t take a hint.

“Hey, babe, we’ve been looking for you,” Niall says, smooth as he can manage. “We’ve got a table in the back.”

“Yes, sorry, yes, thank you,” his rescuee says, as unsmooth as he can manage, apparently.

Niall nearly slaps a hand over his face, but he keeps his cool. “Excuse us, if you don’t mind,” he throws to the other guy, who looks very much like he minds.

Floral Shirt doesn’t move, awkwardly looking back and forth between the two of them like he’s forgotten it’s his turn to do something. There’s a desperate moment where Niall knows he can’t say anything, but nothing’s happening. Niall could leave him there, for what it’s worth, he’s tried his best. But he can’t.

Niall gets a hand to Floral Shirt’s back and presses gently until he’s up off his stool. It feels odd, the firm press of his back against Niall’s hand, so Niall drops his hand as soon as he’s on his feet. Floral Shirt doesn’t seem to notice.

“Have a good night,” Floral Shirt says, looking for a moment like he’s going to give the other bloke a hug or a handshake or something. He turns the movement into a reach for his drink, wrapping one of his large paws around a delicate martini glass.

Niall leads him to the other end of the pub toward the tables, just about where he’d set up his band if Bressie would let him. He removes his hand with a cordial nod. “All right, mate, good luck.”

“Wait,” Floral Shirt says, distressed. “I mean, what if he sees us separate? Then he’ll know.”

“You can just tell a guy you’re not interested.”

“I could,” he says uncertainly.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s just. I don’t want to be rude.” He says it like Niall’s just asked him to kick a puppy or something. It’s not that hard, Niall’s had years of fending off advances. Sometimes they get a bit angry, but that’s always better than the alternative. Miles better.

And it’s not like Floral Shirt could have had any trouble fending him off anyway, given he’s got enough rings on each of his fingers that he could knock someone out if he weren’t too careful.

“What’s rude?” Niall says. “You don’t want it, you don’t want it.”

Floral Shirt shrugs half-heartedly, unconvinced still. Niall casts another look around the bar, finds the guy staring at them.

“All right,” Niall decides, gesturing at a chair. “Have a seat.”

“I’m Harry.” He reaches a hand over as he sits down. Niall takes it, standing and shaking his hand at an awkward angle until he sits down himself.

“Niall.”

“Niall,” Harry echoes, his voice curving awkwardly around a truly awful Irish accent.

“Don’t do that.”

“Okay,” Harry says pleasantly and takes a sip of his martini. He makes a small face, his nose scrunching and his lips twisting to the side as he swallows. Maybe he’s a lightweight.

“Here’s hoping that’s your worst date of the year,” Niall says, tipping his pint forward until it clinks with Harry’s martini. He drinks, Harry doesn’t.

“That's nothing,” Harry says instead, leaning forward like they're conspiring about something. “One time I went out with this Uber driver. He’d shown up half an hour late because he’d taken a fare on his way over to get me. He’d forgotten to turn the app off or something while I was in the car, so it like beeped a new fare for him on the way to the restaurant.”

“No,” Niall says, already forecasting where this is headed.

“He said he had to take it, like, too many strikes against his account for declining fares. So he stopped off to get them.”

“Did you get out?”

Harry takes a sip of his drink in favor of answering, which is enough of an answer in itself.

“Harry! You didn’t.” Niall runs his hands over his face, half absolutely mortified on Harry’s behalf, half just to stop himself from laughing right in Harry’s face. He can’t imagine. He’d have thrown himself out of a still moving car to avoid that kind of terror. Or, at least, jumped out at a red light.

“I was hungry! And he deserved to buy me dinner. Poor uni student takes what he can get when it’s not pot noodles.”

“That takes some kind of balls, mate, having a meal after all that.”

Harry shrugs. He’s got about seven more stories in him, each one more absurd than the last.

Niall almost has a hard time picturing Harry having any trouble getting a good date, though. He’s fit enough, Niall’s at least able to recognize that. He’s got this easy sort of charm that’s got Niall half-hanging on his every word in about three minutes flat. Niall wonders how he’s done that, nobody does that.

“Went home with this girl a few weeks ago. She said we had to be quiet because her flatmates were sleeping. Turns out her flatmates were her parents.”

“They didn’t -- walk in -- ” Niall stutters.

“No, but her mum did make me a full English the next morning, sat at her table and had a family meal while Sara was still sleeping. So. Essentially the same.” Harry exhales, his cheeks puffing up and his eyes widening comically, before taking another drink with a face.

Niall finally clocks it, that scrunched face of Harry’s. “You don’t like that drink.”

He looks caught for a moment, rubbing at his nose like that’s a distraction. “He bought it for me.”

Niall narrows his eyes. “Sensing a trend here.”

Harry narrows his eyes right back. “It costs nothing to be polite.”

Niall’s polite, perfectly polite even, when he can be. But he’s not in the business of putting himself in situations he’s not comfortable with, not anymore. He’s got his set of lines, drawn thick and clear.

“Except maybe your own satisfaction or sense of personal worth,” Niall says, but it comes out rougher than it should.

Harry blinks slowly, taken aback. “Fuck me.”

“Sorry,” Niall says with a wince. “That was too hard for a Friday night.”

“Little bit,” Harry allows, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to run. Niall’s not sure if it’s because he’s just being polite or what. Once Niall’s had the thought, he can’t quite shake it.

“What d’you actually like to drink?”

Harry tilts his head thoughtfully. “I could do a whiskey.”

“Any particular kind of whiskey?”

“I’m honestly not sophisticated enough to taste the difference.”

“Rocks?”

Harry grins. “If I’m feeling cheeky.”

“All right.” Niall rises and heads for the bar without waiting for a response from Harry, but he does hear one, a half-hearted _Niall wait_ attempting to follow him along his way. He gives a cursory glance around the pub as he goes, for Harry’s sake.

This’ll be it for them. A good deed done, or something, so he can release Harry back into the wild. No use in cornering him, then he won’t be any better than the bloke he’d saved Harry from.

Harry looks embarrassed when Niall brings him the whiskey -- on the rocks because Harry looks like he’s feeling cheeky -- but he sips at it appreciatively. Niall doesn’t sit down, instead reports, “He’s left, you’re in the clear.”

Harry frowns at the drink, then at Niall. “All right. Cheers, mate.”

“‘Course. You ever need help again, you just let me know.”

“I’ll give a tug on my ear.”

“Sure,” Niall laughs. He knocks his knuckles on the table and slides away for the door with a passive wave to Bressie.

That’s honestly enough excitement for one night.

\--

Niall, embarrassingly enough, keeps an eye out for Harry, even though he sees a contingent of the LIC in the far right corner waiting for him. There’s no reason to think he’d be back, same time same place on a Friday night, because not all people are freakish creatures of habit like Niall.

People have got lives and things to do and tend to shy away from places where they’re nearly assaulted by greasy-looking blokes.

He doesn’t know what he plans to do with Harry if he saw him anyway. He’s got more than enough mates, and he’s not looking for anything else. Never looking for anything else. So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, that jump in Niall’s chest, when he sees Harry across the pub, stuffed tightly in what little space he’s got at the bar.

Niall stares for a while, marveling a little in the probability of Harry being here, then at the absurdity of the odd, wide-eyed looks Harry keeps throwing him. Then Niall realizes.

Harry’s tugging on his ear, near pulling the damn thing off. That’s his cue. He’s talking to a girl who’s got a few strands of her braided hair twisting around and around in her fingers. Her eyes find her fingers more often than Harry’s eyes. It’s a rescue for sure.

Niall nearly crashes onto him. “Hey, Harry, Christ, it’s been ages -- oh, so sorry.” Niall throws her a sympathetic look for having interrupted, but she looks like she’s about to be liberated, glad for the interruption.

“Please excuse me,” Harry tells her.

“Yeah, thanks for the drink,” she says, or at least Niall thinks she does, because she’s halfway across the bar by the time her sentence is done.

“Thanks,” Harry says glumly once they’re alone. “You’re quite good at that. I’m actually a little nervous how good you are at that.”

Niall shrugs it off. He’s made his fair share of excuses in his time, at some point it just becomes second nature. He looks between the two of them, eager to take the attention off himself and push it back onto Harry. “Didn’t like her?”

Harry presses his face onto the bar. Niall winces, it’s probably tacky with spilled drinks, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind. He says, muffled, “No, god, she didn’t like me.”

“What?”

“I totally put my foot in it, like, immediately, some sort of misplaced joke about eggs. She was practically gesturing for a rescue from her mate, but she wasn’t looking.” Harry lifts his head and turns wide, panicked eyes to Niall. “I just kept talking and talking, like, fucking terrified, trying to dig my way out of it, and she looked like she was dying. I couldn’t stop talking, Niall. Stop laughing.”

“I’m not laughing,” Niall laughs.

“It was my worst nightmare. So you can imagine how she felt.”

“I’m sure she’s used to it.” Niall waves over Bressie, who gives him a nod of the head and a one sec.

“She shouldn’t be,” Harry says mournfully.

Niall rolls his eyes. “All right, Harry Whatsyername -- ”

“Styles.”

“ -- savior of all single women in bars.” Niall tips his hat at Harry.

Harry’s face scrunches, which would make him look something like a brat if there weren’t something so oddly endearing about it. “Shut up.”

Niall solicits a Guinness and a whiskey rocks from Bressie. Harry doesn’t bother coloring his cheeks this time, just takes the glass and gulps back a few generous swallows before he frowns at Niall.

“Took me like seven minutes to get her drink from him,” Harry says.

It is quite busy, now that Niall thinks about it, and not for any particular reason. It’s not like they’ve got a _live band_ or anything to attract new business. They’re slinging the same shit every other pub in town is.

“Irish has its perks.” Niall squeezes himself on the vacated stool and leans against the bar for what feels like the long haul. “What were you doing talking her up? You can’t just like pop a dimple and get someone in a taxi?”

“I’m not -- well, first of all, that’s rude, honestly, just like assuming that I’m not going to want to talk to anyone I, you know, get into a taxi with. I like to talk.”

“I know,” Niall says lowly, taking a pull and bugging his eyes.

Harry makes a face at him again and flips him off, Niall cackling as he swats at Harry’s hand.

“I’m not just looking for a shag anyway,” Harry says, leaning forward earnestly enough Niall starts to worry. “I want to fall in love.”

“Sure,” Niall says. Don’t we all, he thinks. Sort of.

“M’serious.”

Niall watches him, determines Harry really is quite as serious as he looks. Then he just about can’t believe it. “Think you’re gonna do that here, do you?”

Harry shifts on his stool to face outward, his back to the bar like Niall’s. He swipes his finger across his nose as he surveys the room critically. “It’s as good a place as any to start.”

“All right,” Niall says. No offense to Bressie or anything, but Niall doubts it. “What’s got you on the hunt?”

“I’m tired of dating. The whole thing just feels sort of. I dunno. Temporary. Y’know?”

Niall doesn’t, personally, but he hums positively anyway, drops his eyes to watch Harry’s long fingers press one by one into the glass of whiskey he’s holding on top of one of his thighs.

“Trying people on is, like,” Harry continues slowly. “Exhausting. Figuring out what to say, what to do.”

“Maybe no ill-conceived jokes about eggs.”

Harry slants his eyes over at Niall, his lips pressing thinly into an unimpressed look. “I mean, I’m gonna put that one on the No List, for sure.”

“Thanks very much.”

“I’ve, y’know, I don’t really know how to say this without sounding like a complete wanker, but. I’ve known a lot of people.” Harry pauses, circling his finger in the rim of his whiskey as he thinks. It’s a long wait, has Niall holding his breath. “Like. A lot of people. But none of them ever seem to stick. I’ve never been in love.”

“You’re young, though,” Niall says gently, because that’s what they always say. You’re young, you’ve got time, you’ll find someone. Niall’s been told that a million times over, pitying looks every time he’s told someone he’s single. It’s entirely something else to be told that when you aren’t looking. Harry’s looking. And Niall’s just looking at Harry.

“I know,” Harry says, almost defensively. “I know it’s not gonna be easy, like. I know that. M’not seriously delusional or anything. But it feels like it should be easy. Like when you know, you know. And I just haven’t known. Y’know?”

“Yeah.”

Harry studies him for a moment, his gaze hot and direct. Niall stares back, best as he can, ignoring that nudging in the back of his head that he doesn’t know what to do with, that nudging that says he quite likes looking at Harry.

Harry’s handsome. He can recognize at least that much, in a passing way, Harry’s a handsome man with an easy, winning smile that easily makes up for the absurd ruffles on his blouse tonight. It’s objective. Harry’s handsome. There’s nothing to do with it.

“Like. You ever been in love before?” Harry asks after what feels like a hundred years.

“I don’t think so.” Niall knows so, it’s no.

“The last person you were with, you don’t think you loved them?”

Niall opens his mouth, prepares himself for the lie, to simply say no, but what comes out is the truth, too late to bottle up once it’s out there. “I don’t… date.”

Harry blinks at him a time or seven. “So what are you doing?”

“Hm?” Niall says around a sip of his beer.

“Like. You’re on the pull.”

Niall hums noncommittally, knows that’s what it looks like from the outside, sure, because it’s easier to.

“You don’t strike me as a one night stand kind of bloke,” Harry says, his hands going wild enough as he talks that he risks spilling his drink. “Even though that’s okay. Like. If you were. I don’t mean to say, you know, I don’t mean to be reductive or anything. Because you should have sex if you want to have sex, it’s not just like for people in -- it’s not just for relationships. It’s 2017, and. It’s reductive, isn’t it, because dating someone or, like, marrying them, it doesn’t mean you just have exclusive rights to fuck them. You can do whatever you want.”

Niall blinks, doesn’t even begin to know how to parse through that. So he just says, “Thanks. I think.”

Harry grins at him over the rim of his whiskey, his cheeks tinting red. “Sorry, god, I never do this. Like. Pour all my problems all over strangers at a pub and then probe them for their deepest, darkest secrets.”

Niall stops a little sigh of relief Harry’s halted his own line of questioning and says, “Ah, we’re not strangers now, are we?”

“No?”

“Reckon we’re at least acquaintances.”

Harry chuckles. “You don’t need a rescue?”

“From you, Harry Styles, never,” Niall says, somehow not surprised to find that rings true.

Harry tilts his head down and leans in, his lips nearly brushing Niall’s ear as he says lowly, “Mm, I like my name on your lips.”

“Save it for the birds,” Niall laughs, shoving at his shoulder and fighting a shiver that Harry’s gotten that close.

The moment’s broken, then, they both know it. Whatever magic that keeps them together has dissipated and they have to get back to their lives now, Harry to his mission, Niall to his mates. They watch each other for a while, like a silent game of chicken to see who’ll move first.

Harry rises, so he loses. He says, “I should go,” but then he doesn’t.

“Yeah, good luck.” Niall passes him a smile and rises as well. Last time he ended it on his own terms, he should do so again. “See you around.”  

“Count on it,” Harry says, grinning back.

In the end, he’s not sure who breaks first, but he finds his feet carrying him to the other end of the pub, to the collection of tables that house his friends, who he realizes, now that he’s not only focused on Harry, are being quite loud.

They thunder his name when he comes up, pound the table, the classic LIC greeting, until Niall hollers at them to quiet down and takes a seat.

“Who was that?” Laura asks, something sly on her face that Niall quite wishes she’d wipe off.

It twists Niall’s stomach anyway, to say, “My mate Harry,” when the truth of it is mates aren’t supposed to catch your breath in your chest talking to them.

He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling, so he presses it away, deep into that box of other nasty feelings he doesn’t want, the ones that haunt him, the _you’re never going to get a gig_ , the _you’re going to end up alone_.

The thing is, it doesn’t feel like a nasty feeling. It feels like something he should explore instead of hide, because it feels good. But he’s felt it, maybe just once or twice before, and nothing good’s ever come of it. Not a single person’s understood. So Niall locks it up tight and swears he’ll lose the key.

\--

The fifth time he sees Harry is possibly Harry’s most successful. Not that Niall’s been banking on Harry’s lack of success, just so he can spend time with him. Honestly, he thinks it’d be rather nice if Harry found someone he thinks he could love. Then Niall would have to stop marking out hours at work trying to figure out what it is that’s got him so excited to see Harry, that’s got Niall hanging on his every word.

Harry’s backed up against a wall, next to the fake jukebox Bressie has -- some sort of racket to collect unsuspecting patron’s money, 5p at a time. Not that Niall’s bitter about the jukebox. Or the girl pressing him into the wall.

Niall tries to work out what it is in him that has him bothered. It’s not disgust -- he’s always treated snogging with a gentle sort of curiosity. But it isn’t that he wishes it was him either. There’s a little too much going on, hands roaming, hips pressing. He just wishes Harry wouldn’t.

That’s not very fair, he notes absently. But whoever said anything about fair.

It’s late enough Niall could get away with just going home. He’s had a long day, followed by a long night, and it’s the thought that nothing’s waiting for him back at his flat that even dragged his feet in the direction of Bressie’s like it was second nature.

“All right, chief?” Bressie cuts in, swapping the dregs of his Guinness for a fresh one.

“Mm? Yeah.” He crooks an eyebrow over at Bressie. He must be off his game tonight if he’s got someone asking after how he is. He’s meant to keep it cool, he’s always got it cool. There’s never anything weighing him down, because that sort of thing invites questions. And he’s never in the mood to answer those kinds of questions, he’s drawn the line at those kinds of questions.

“You haven’t badgered me for a gig in the last fifteen minutes. Starting to get worried, is all.”

“How ‘bout a gig, Brez?” Niall asks perfunctorily, but, honestly, after the shitshow tonight, he needs something of a break.

Bressie grins. “Nah.”

“S’what I thought.” Niall raises his pint in thanks and pads over to a booth in the back, out of sight of the jukebox. Can’t exactly go home now, waste of a pint and all.

It’s never empty, his home, he never thinks of it that way. He’s got Willie and they have a laugh, they have the LIC over more often than not, even on nights when Niall knows he should turn in for his early shift with his numbers the next day. He fills his days, full to the brim, with his plus twenty of friends, so it doesn’t quite feel like he’s missing something without a plus one.

Sometimes he thinks he should fake it, just so he can saddle himself with a live-in plus one, someone dedicated to him at all hours, so he can dedicate all his time right back. He thinks he’d like that, finding his person, cultivating some sort of deeper level of connection, belonging, dedication. He might could fake the rest of it, just so he could have that.

But faking it isn’t what he wants. He’s not in the business of saddling himself with something he wants.

Although speaking of.

Harry slides into the seat across from Niall, draping himself over the table. He looks a little tipsy already.

“All right, H?” Niall asks as casually as he can manage.

He nods, a dazed smile slowly carving its way onto his face. “Oh, yeah.”

“Love of your life back there?” Niall hates himself as soon as he says it, pinches at his own thigh just to get a hold of himself.

“Maybe,” Harry says, none the wiser. “Got her number.”

“Congratulations.” Jesus Christ, he doesn’t usually turn into an absolute terror when he’s tired. He needs to loosen the fuck up or just go home.

Harry sniffs and runs his hand through his hair and fixes Niall with this look like the whole jig is up. That was short lived, but maybe it’ll be easier for Niall in the long run, he won’t have to keep feeling this way.

But then Harry just says, “How are you?”

 _Tell him you’re fine tell him you’re fine._ “I’m exhausted, really,” Niall says. _Fuck_.

“Yeah?” Harry encourages, open and looking ready to listen.

Niall could get lost in the serious crease of his eyebrows that say Harry’s dedicated to whatever Niall’s got to say. There’s no use in getting into it really, something of a bore, Niall’s always scraping.

Years of scraping for gigs have the band thinking they’re getting nowhere fast. Scraping data during the day, taking numbers and transforming them and putting them elsewhere, never to see what comes of them. Sometimes he bores himself to death talking about his own job. Kind as people pretend to be, they never actually want to listen to you complain, so Niall doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

“Yeah, it’s just. Long work week,” Niall finds himself complaining. “Had a gig tonight as well, didn’t go so hot.”

Harry’s eyes widen. “Are you in a band?”

“Bit of a band.”

“What are you called?”

Niall laughs, something rueful in it. “I dunno, it’s -- honestly, I have no clue. Changes every other week, which isn’t exactly doing anything for our brand.”

Harry laughs, something amused in it. “What are you called this week?”

“The, uh. Well, now I’m about to say it aloud, sounds a bit stupid. But the Paddy Cap Crew.”

Harry’s lips twist, like he’s amused but he’s trying not to be. “That explains the hat.”

“Yeah.” Niall touches at the brim of it, not even self-consciously, but almost like he just wants to have a hand on whatever’s on Harry’s mind.

“What happened with the gig?”

“Ah, just. Lost me nerve a little. Audience wasn’t paying attention anyway.”

“I wish I’d been there,” Harry says, following up quickly with wide eyes. “So you’d have a friendly face. Not to, like, see you at your worst or anything. Everyone needs an ally when they’re on a stage, don’t they.”

“Yeah.” You don’t always get your mates to come. They come when they can, and Niall would never hold it against a soul. Not when you’ve got eight songs to play at three gigs a year. But there’s something special about squinting beyond the stage lights (if there even are stage lights) and locking eyes with the one person in the room you know is having the time of their fucking lives.

“You should let me know when you next gig is, I’ll come.” Harry reaches over and takes a sip of Niall’s beer without permission, not that he really needs it. “Make a Paddy Cap Crew fan club t-shirt.”

Niall feels a smile poking its way into the corners of his mouth at the thought of it, Harry turning in one of his billowy, unbuttoned blouses for a shirt with Niall’s band on the front. “If we’re still called that, sure.”

“I’ll just write it on a strip of duct tape. Easy removal.”

“You don’t even know if we’re any good.”

“Ah, I have a good feeling about these sorts of things.” Harry taps his nose like listening has fuck all to do with your nose, but Niall appreciates it anyway.

“What about you?” he asks before they get too deep into it. Before Niall starts admitting things he doesn’t want to. “What d’you do during the day? Don’t know too much about you.”

“Not much to know,” Harry says after some thought.

“That’s a load of shit, if I ever heard one.” Niall levels him an unimpressed look. Harry once told him he ate twenty-seven kiwis in a row on a dare. Harry’s got stories to share, sometimes you’ve just got to pull them out of him, like unspooling a thick line of rope.

He’d tightened up, the last few times Niall had seen him, had locked his lips and stared at Niall with these attentive eyes that kept Niall talking and talking just for the pleasure of keeping his attention. Niall wonders if he’d slipped up, then, if he was buzzing and hadn’t meant to tell Niall what he was doing here, what his great mission was.

He’d said it so firmly -- _I want to fall in love_. People don’t just talk like that. Harry must have realized.

Niall knows the secrets now, get him a bit liquored up, hit him with the leading questions, and Harry starts leaking truths. “What d’you do when you’re not sleazing around here?”

Harry levels him with a narrow-eyed glare that’s in no way effective. “I’m in law school.”

Niall can’t help the surprised look that overcomes his face. “Shit. Really?”

“Yeah. Got the dark bags under my eyes to prove it. Beneath all this foundation.”

“Why law school?”

“Couldn’t find a circus that’d take me.”

“What would a circus want with you?” Niall laughs. “Besides you dressing like a clown.”

“I can juggle,” Harry answers primly.

“Is that all?”

Harry’s face goes scrunched, offended. “What d’you mean, _is that all._ Can you juggle?”

“No.”

Harry leans back in his seat, looking like he’s won something. “All right then.”

It loosens then, that pressure in Niall’s chest. It gets him laughing long enough he forgets the shit gig, the long week, the feeling that he’s turned his life into a treadmill, running fast as he can and never getting anywhere.

He pulls at Harry’s rope, when he can, unspools all manner of truths, because it’s easier than letting Harry tug at his own rope.

\--

Harry lights up at the sight of him, it seems, and makes a line straight for Niall, not even stopping at the bar for a drink first. Niall’s already got him one anyway, something absurd Harry tried last week and liked. He knows he shouldn’t have assumed, he really genuinely knows that, but Harry’s managed to prove him right anyway, that Harry’d find his way over eventually. He just didn’t think it’d be first thing.

One of these days someone’s bound to stick in this sea of people walking in and out of Harry’s life. Niall hopes it’s him.

Harry curls around Niall’s shoulders, in something of a standing up/sitting down hug. Harry decided they should start hugging last week. Niall’s not said anything about it, he’s no stranger to a hug. Musicians are fairly tactile in general, as are the LIC. He knows what to do with a hug between mates, even if he’s never been the one to instigate it.

Then Harry settles in across the booth from him and slides the blue drink over, his mouth going wide as his tongue painstakingly finds the straw.

“You’re not on the pull tonight?”

“I have a date,” Harry says after a hard swallow. “Tomorrow night. Feels a little, like, disingenuous to try to keep meeting people, when you’ve got something lined up.”’

Niall’s not quite sure why he’s here, then, if he’s not on the pull, but he isn’t going to question it. He’s not going to question the lot of it, not even the way he can’t stop himself from saying flatly, “A date.”

“Yeah. His name is Ellis Greenfeld the third, if you can believe it. He’s in finances.”

“I believe it.”

Harry hums around his straw again, another long pull and a hard swallow. “You? Any big plans this weekend?”

“Mostly just sitting around in my pants watching golf when it’s on and old episodes of Bake Off when it’s not,” Niall finds himself admitting, the least bloody rockstar thing he can imagine. He reckons he should try to cultivate some sort of air of coolness, if he’s going to go about being a musician. But honestly, he likes a good lie down with his shows, especially when he can whine and moan his way into someone joining him.

Harry closes his eyes seriously as he reverentially murmurs, “I fucking love Bake Off.”

“To Bake Off,” Niall says, raising his glass. “Rest in peace.”

Harry clinks. “To Bake Off.”

Four more fruity drinks later, Harry’s swaying and still hollering about Bake Off. People are looking -- it’s not exactly the kind of vibe here, more of a quiet drink to an acoustic soundtrack to unwind from the day.

But Harry doesn’t exactly play by the rules, so riled up he’s practically climbing across the table as he’s ranting about Paul being a massive twat, among other things, the first impolite thing Niall has heard from Harry. “And he's sooo concerned with the lamination, it's like the only thing he's programmed to talk about sometimes.”

Niall’s not in any position to deny him, so he follows him right up. “I can hear him in my brain. _Laminate! LAM-MIN-ATE!_ Like a Dalek.”

“Like a Paulek,” Harry says sagely.

“Underproved!” Niall intones with his best Dalek voice. “Underbaked!”

Harry honks. He does it with his whole body, it seems like, rolling up from his waist, until the honk leaves his lips.

“Jesus Christ,” Niall mutters, charmed. It’s possible they’re both on the wrong side of pissed.

“Fuckin’ love Bake Off,” Harry says, sliding back down in his bench. His feet find their way over onto Niall’s bench, bracketing both sides of him.

Niall rests a lazy hand on his ankle for the thrill of it, trying to see if he’s the kind of person who can do these kinds of things. Who can be as casually intimate as Harry is. It doesn’t last long, Niall feeling vaguely foolish and using that hand to take a pull from his drink.

Harry doesn’t appear to notice. “Dreamt of going on one day. I used to be a baker.”

Niall grins, happy to receive another few inches of Harry’s rope. He honestly had no idea Harry had any interests outside of the law, and even then, it doesn’t seem like much of an interest to Harry anymore. More like an obligation. “You should have gone out for it when it was on.”

“Nah. Haven’t baked in years.”

“Why not?”

Harry exhales deeply, his lips buzzing with it. “Just isn’t enough time if I’m trying to date. If I’m not here or in class, I’m revising. And honestly sometimes I consider revising here.”

“You’d have to walk that line between looking attractively intellectual and a massive prat who just wants someone to ask him what he’s doing.”

“I could do it,” Harry says, his face crunching at Niall’s doubt. “I’ve got a pair of glasses and everything. Proper dashing.”

“Is that why you only get the one date, you make them sit in the corner of your flat quietly while you’re revising?”

“Sometimes I let them help me make flash cards.”

Niall feels it slipping back into the easy banter they both lean on to keep them from unspooling truths. He’s not having it, he shouldn’t indulge in it. “So this is really the only break you get, sitting in this pub?”

“Yeah.” Harry squints at him. “You sound disappointed in me.”

“I’m not! I’m not. Hobbies are important, like.” Niall doesn’t want to say he has his music, because it’s more than a hobby for him. It’s a passion he can’t live without, something he’d turn into a career in a heartbeat if he could. He hasn’t really got hobbies either, if getting pissed and watching sport doesn’t count. “You should do some things for yourself.”

“Yeah,” Harry says softly. “Miss it.”

Harry tilts his head anyway like he’s picturing the same thing Niall is -- Harry in an apron with flour in his hair, lying down on the floor of the tent with his hands over his face, worrying his Victoria sponge isn’t going to come out perfect. He’d like to see that kind of Harry, and by the wistful look on Harry’s face, he would too.

“Since we’re just sitting here… Do you want to have our own bake off?” Niall suggests casually.

Harry’s eyes widen and he starts to scoot his way out of the booth. “Fuck yes I do. Right now?”

“Yes, right now,” Niall laughs.

“Sick. There’s a twenty-four hour Tesco by mine,” Harry says, pulling out his phone with such enthusiasm it flies out of his hand onto the floor. Niall swoops to pick it up for him and they hover over it to grab the address.

They agree to stumble along the streets long enough until Niall can hail a taxi, remembering Harry’s story about that Uber driver and not wanting to risk reopening a trauma.

He slides into the taxi first, anticipating scooting his way down the seat when Harry starts to climb over him, risking knocking Niall in the face with at least three of his limbs.

“The fuck are you doing,” Niall says even though it’s perfectly clear.

Harry settles into the middle seat instead of the far seat and buckles up as the driver gives them an amused look in the rearview and says, “All right, lads. Where we headed?”

“Do you happen to know any white tents in the middle of a field with a full kitchen in?” Harry asks.

“Shut up, Harry,” Niall says, then, because he’s actually useful, rattles off the address of the Tesco.

They agree to buy their own ingredients instead of sharing (and plenty of beer), check out at registers at the opposite ends of the store, and keep their bags behind their backs as they walk to Harry’s. They’re not baking to an agreed upon theme, there’s no time limit, absolutely nothing that they’re doing has anything to do with Bake Off at all, except they’ll have something baked at the end of it.

“Don’t look at what I’m doing!” Harry hollers when Niall casts a casual look to his side of the kitchen. He throws himself over his bowl, like Niall’s not already bought his ingredients and is locked in to making whatever he’s bought.

“I’m not!” Niall turns back to his own bag of flour and hunches over the kitchen table. Niall tips back a beer and asks, “Is this a good idea, drunk baking?”

“It’s the best idea,” Harry says sincerely.

Niall reckons he can’t argue with that, but he’s exactly aware of how much skill he’s got, tipsy or no, with nothing but a hastily googled recipe on his side. So he keeps it simple.

“I’m pleased with that,” he can hear Harry say absently, sometimes narrating to himself as though he’s got a camera that’s interested in what he’s got to say. Niall chuckles to himself and sneaks more than his fair share of glances over at what Harry’s doing, just to watch him go.

Harry’s ready for the oven about the same time that Niall is, and they stand next to each other, clutching their parchment-paper lined trays of chocolate chip cookies.

“Have we -- did we make the same thing?”

Harry looks down at his tray. “Mine has oatmeal in it.”

“Well, that does make all the difference.”

“And it’s sugar free,” Harry says, then steals the top rack in the oven, the bastard.

They wait out their time in the oven pressed side by side at the sink, washing dishes because Harry always washes his dishes while his bakes are in the oven, otherwise his bowls will get crusty.

There’s a moment, when Harry’s slowly replacing his rings on his hands after he’s dried off, there’s a moment where Niall wonders how he’s gotten to this point. A few odd months’ worth of Friday nights together have led them here. And not even whole Friday nights, just snatches of hours where he can hold Harry temporarily until he’s off in search of looking for bigger and better things.

Harry hadn’t even gone a lap around the pub tonight. His bigger and better thing couldn’t be found. Or it’s on Wednesday with Ellis the financier. Or maybe, Niall hopes in a small way, it’s just because Niall is the bigger and better thing he wanted tonight.

Harry insists their Showstopper challenge is a draw, but honestly Niall wins because he’s bought the better chocolate and you shouldn’t really insult a bake by removing sugar from it. That’s half the point. They eat their biscuits far before they’re reasonably cool enough, sharing beers and sitting on the floor in Harry’s kitchen because he has got a table but he hasn’t got chairs.

Harry’s eyes start drifting, then his head does, cushioned against Niall’s shoulder, and just the second where Niall wonders what would happen if they stayed like this, curled up against each other, solid and warm and totally natural, Niall calls it a night.

Niall gets a yawn from Harry for his troubles as he slowly helps Harry work his way to his feet. Harry walks him to the door, scratching sleepily at his stomach. “You can call me. If you want to, you know, try to win Star Baker next weekend. M’good for a rematch.”

“I will do.” Niall slides his shoes on where he’s left them by the door.

He finds Harry grinning at him when he looks back up. “I like you, Niall.”

“Yeah?” Niall says, raising a hand to his mouth to gnaw at the side of his thumb to distract from what that does to his stomach.

“Yeah. You’re easy.”

Niall grins back stupidly, almost laughs. Absolutely nobody’s ever accused him of being easy, but he knows what Harry means. “I like you too.”

“Sick.”

Niall doesn’t know what it is about Harry. He wants Harry to look at him, but not touch him. Except the hugs, which are good, and maybe the gentle press of his lips if he promised they could just stop there.

Harry does give him a hug, looping his arms under Niall’s so he’s got a firm grasp of his torso as he presses their chests and their cheeks together. Harry’s warm and he smells like sweat and fruity cocktail and oatmeal, and it becomes clear enough after the thirtieth second they’re pressed together that Harry’s not the kind to pull away first. So Niall does. His body feels like it’s on fire.

Harry leans in after him, possibly swaying because he’s got no balance at all, but there’s something dark in his eyes that says maybe there’s something more to it. It’s more than the fact that Harry’s got a date that has Niall taking one step back. Then another.

“I’ll give you a ring, yeah?” Niall says, then shoots down the stairs without waiting for a response.

Niall gets all the way back to his flat before he realizes he doesn’t have Harry’s phone number.

\--

They called _Niall_. That’s the happy miracle of it all. For the first time, someone’s looked at Niall -- at Niall’s band, that is, and they’ve thought, _I want that, let me go get it._

The first and only thing he wants to do is tell Harry. But he can’t find him anywhere. And by anywhere, he means Bressie’s. He waits an hour, two hours, and Harry’s usually here by then, but he’s not.

He walks himself all the way to Harry’s flat to find Harry answering the door with a bewildered face, looking sleepy soft with rumpled hair to match his rumpled t-shirt. Niall’s never seen his legs before, but he’s got a pair of them, half-covered by blue gym shorts.

Harry holds the door open for him and Niall rushes them through their hellos as he walks in so he can say, “I got a gig.”

Harry gathers him up into a hug. “Yeah? That’s incredible.”

“It’s next Friday at Greenfingers. At nine,” Niall says, carefully leaves off the _will you come see me_ that clearly sits at the end of that sentence.

“That’s amazing,” Harry says as Niall ends the hug to get a look at him. Niall likes looking at him.

“I just, I wanted to tell you. You weren’t at the pub.”

Harry’s face falls like he’s feeling guilty. “Was tired.”

The absurdity of it all hits Niall in half a second and he claps a hand to his face. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t -- I didn’t even think, I don’t have your number. This is -- honestly, this is the most fucking absurd thing I’ve ever done.”

 _Christ_ , this is highly inappropriate. There are all number of reasons Harry wouldn’t be at the pub. If his date had gone well, he might not be on the pull. He might have had a date tonight, Ellis the bloke in finances could be in the other room right now. And Niall’s just dropped by, unannounced, like they’re characters on a sitcom where that’s totally acceptable behavior. It’s selfish --

But Harry grins softly and says, “I’m glad you’re here.” He nods further in before padding into the kitchen, his bare feet slapping against the lino. “Would you like a muffin? I made them yesterday, I’ve decided to start baking again. You’ve inspired me.”

Niall slips off his shoes before he follows, resting them neatly by the pile Harry keeps by the door. “What kind of muffin?”

“It’s a gluten free bran muffin.” He gestures to where they’re laid out on the kitchen table, surrounded by a small mountain of very ominously sized law books.

Niall gapes, pressing a hand to his chest in terror. “I’ve inspired a gluten free bran muffin? That’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“So it’s a no on the muffin?” Harry says blandly, an unimpressed look on his face.

“Hard no.”  

He moves for the fridge instead. “Guinness?”

“Good lad.”

“Bought them for you.” Harry grins over at him as he cracks the top off. “In case you ever impulsively decided to show up in the middle of the night with no warning.”

Niall’s cheeks flush as he takes the beer from Harry but he scowls anyway. Harry laughs all the way to the sofa.

“How was your date?” Niall finds himself asking, because he hates himself a little, but also because it seems like Harry’s going to say it’s terrible.

He doesn’t want Harry to have terrible dates, he doesn’t want -- well, honestly, he doesn’t know what he wants. But he knows what he has, which is Harry sitting next to him on the sofa, glad Niall’s here.

“It was just weird. Weird date. I wish you’d been there,” Harry says, pressing himself into Niall’s chest. Niall feels his stomach flip at the thought, at the touch. “You could have saved me.”

“D’you wanna talk about it?” Niall asks gently, maneuvering his arm so it rests on the cushion instead of awkwardly pressing against Harry’s arm. This isn’t bad, just a light cuddle between mates. He can do this, he thinks, even though he can’t keep himself from wiggling, like maybe if he can solidify the best position, he could be comfortable with this.

“Not really. I’m always on about my dates. What about yours? I know you said you weren’t dating, have you changed your mind?”

Niall stills. He doesn’t have to say, he doesn’t have to give anything away. But he could. He could say the words pressing weight down on his chest, not in the nearly comforting way Harry does, but in a way that constricts his breathing. It’s not the truth of it that hurts, it’s that he’s never told the truth.

“I’ve never dated anyone before,” Niall says, the words thick on his tongue, “not really, cos I thought like. I dunno, it was just better to go at it alone.”

“Never?” Harry asks, more curious than judgmental from the sound of it.

“In school, like, maybe I was a bit odd. Average to mediocre looking, like. Not exactly what the girls are going for. I’d tell meself, next year. That’s the one to do it. Wait ‘til the braces come off. Buy a pair of jeans that fit instead of wearing Greg’s hand-me-downs. Then I could get a girl. But I wasn’t even really trying. Didn’t even really want a girl, but I tried for one.”

Harry hums. “How’d it go?”

“Ahh. I took her to the movies, we went to see like this awful action film, blood and guts everywhere. Even then she tried to kiss me and I closed a door in her face.”

“Fuck,” Harry laughs.

“I’m dead serious. It was her door too, she thought I was leaning in for her, but I just shut the door. Fucking nightmare. She broke up with me the next day over Facebook. We were supposed to go to this dance together, was absolutely dreading it anyway, so. Dodged a bullet there.”

Harry doesn’t even have to say anything, he just has to lie there, a firm weight against Niall, open and earnest eyes looking up at him. He keeps pulling Niall’s rope, and Niall finds himself spilling things he’s never said aloud before.

“Then you start thinking, right,” Niall continues, “like okay. If it’s not girls, maybe I’m gay? But. That didn’t work out so well either.”

Harry blinks at him slowly. “Do you know, like, which one you prefer. Sexually?”

“I haven’t -- like. Done anything. With anyone.”

Harry sits up, no longer pressed against Niall. Niall was sort of expecting that, a clear and immediate division between the two of them. He’s sort of grateful for it, in a way that makes him feel like shit.

Harry’s eyebrows furrow as he thinks it over. “Like sex?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to?”

Niall presses his lips together, reminds himself why he never says it out loud, why the word _asexual_ has never passed through them. He’s made his peace with it. It’s not a tragedy. He’s not going to put him in a position where he’s doing something he doesn’t want, just because people expect him to. Even if it means he doesn’t get the other things. That’s no way to live.

It’d be easy to say yes. To pretend he’s just a grown ass blushing virgin, like maybe he thinks one day it’ll happen for him. That it’s the fear that’s stopping him up instead of the violent disinterest in being touched, in touching.

He doesn’t lie. “No, I don’t think so.”

He braces himself for something that doesn’t come. Harry just nods. There’s no odd frown like Niall’s fucking weird, there’s no telling him, _how do you know if you haven’t tried_ like anyone else has _._ Harry doesn’t say, _maybe you just haven’t found the right person_. He just nods and Niall breathes easier.

“They’re not the same, like,” Niall says, remembering the reason he’d thought Harry could handle it at all. “Dating and sex. It’s like you said. I don’t think being with someone means you’ve got, y’know, exclusive rights to shag them. It’s gotta be more than that, right?”

Harry tilts his head, quirks his lips as he considers it. “I like to think so. If you’re into that sort of thing, romance.”

“You want all the stuff you see in films, like, waking up next to someone. Having someone to share your life with. Being in love. Sappy shit like that.”

“Yeah,” Harry encourages, “yeah.”

“I mean, could you imagine being with someone and not shagging them?” Niall asks, which almost feels unfair. He knows Harry has sex, likes to have sex, has been told when Harry has had sex.

“I don’t -- I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, feeling nearly vindicated. “People want that to come with -- the other. Y’know. And I’m just not sure I can give that to someone. So I don’t want to disappoint anyone. It’s just easier to be alone.”

Niall breathes carefully and watches Harry closely, trying to look like he’s not. It costs nothing to be polite, but Niall doesn’t think he could take it if Harry were polite right now. If Harry indulged him instead of understanding him. But Harry thinks deliberately, then speaks deliberately.

“I’d never be disappointed in you, Niall,” Harry says quietly. “Y’know, it’s okay, that’s okay, if you want to be alone, but. I don’t want you to feel this way because you don’t think you’re worthy of being loved.”

That’s the crux of it and Niall’s breath is gone again. Is it just easier to go at it alone, or does he think he deserves to go at it alone? There are things he could do, he could go searching for another person like him, someone who wouldn’t expect anything from him he doesn’t want to give. But he’s not even done that.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

Harry’s face drops. “I’m sorry, shit. I’m sorry. Too much for a Friday night?”

“No.” Niall shakes his head. “No, sorry, I wanted -- I wanted to tell you.”

“I appreciate that. Sounds like it’s a hard thing to talk about.”

Niall’s got a _not really_ ready on the tip of his tongue, anything to make it seem like he hasn’t done something wholly terrifying, like he has this sort of conversation once a week, just so Harry doesn’t have to worry. He doesn’t want anyone to worry.

Still he says, “It was. But. I dunno, I wanted to know what you thought.”

“Thank you. Can I ask -- just one more.” Harry waits until Niall nods. “Would you, like. Date someone? Ever?”

“If the right person asked,” Niall says. “I think I might.”

Harry watches him and Niall’s torn. Part of him’s chanting _ask me ask me ask me_ and the other bit’s chanting _run the fuck away from this_.

He tries to imagine himself saying it, just about as matter of fact as Harry did. _I want to fall in love._ He does a bit. With Harry a bit. Maybe. Niall blinks and turns away.

“Can we just,” Niall starts, gesturing around like that means anything. It means everything else but this, really, anything that makes Niall feel something other than emotionally exhausted.

“Yeah.” Harry leans over for the remote on the ottoman next to Niall’s socked feet and navigates through without asking what Niall wants to watch. It’s Bake Off because Harry knows best. He leans back into the sofa, hesitating. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Niall says, reaching for him until he melts into Niall’s side. It’s more the fact that Harry seems to want a cuddle then than Niall. But the fact that it makes Harry happy eases the tension eventually. The light way Harry makes Niall’s chest hop when he laughs at Mel and Sue is something short of life-altering.

Harry doesn’t say much but the occasional sigh at a mishap, a murmured _poor Iain_ when he tosses his cake in the bin. For a few hours, it feels like maybe nothing’s happened. But Niall’s unspooled every inch of rope he’s got within him. And Harry hasn’t -- what’s appropriate for the metaphor -- Harry hasn’t set the rope on fire?

Harry yawns in his face when Niall announces his intentions to leave, and doesn’t move. Niall clears his throat. “Thanks for having me.”

“Drop by anytime.”

Niall doesn’t move either, not for a long while, caught between just staying until Harry kicks him out or going ahead to break the illusion that it could be like this. That he could have everything he wanted out of having a person.

Niall hasn’t decided whether he deserves it. If he can turn to Harry and say, _I want to fall in love_ , and then do something about it.

Once he’s made it to the door, Niall slips his shoes on quick as he can, trying not to startle when Harry appears suddenly, leaned against the wall, says, “I didn’t -- did I fuck it up? By asking?”

Asking what, Niall’s not sure, but he knows the answer. “No. You didn’t, I promise.”

It’s not up to Harry to solve anything. Not that there’s anything to _solve_ , it’s not a problem, it’s just how he feels. Niall doesn’t want to have sex, that’s just the way he is. That’s what Harry’d say, he knows it is, that Niall doesn’t have a problem. They’d be on the same page and all.

Niall had feared the worst, but Harry had just taken it in stride. Like a normal fucking person. Niall thinks wryly, there may be a person or two out there, in this the modern age, willing to understand everything, willing to give him a shot. There’s no need to put up a front. On some level he’s always known that, but never deep enough to act on it.

Harry’s not one in a million, but it feels like he is.

\--

The gig is fucking good. Like real fucking good. The boys are on fire, Niall spends a good hour hollering into the mic, and they get applause. Actual, honest to god applause. He keeps his cool long enough to get off the stage without losing it, but it’s a near thing.

It’s a particular kind of high that’ll last a while, and Niall feels that tug to share it with someone. Bird hangs all over him until Niall’s laughing and swatting him away with a, “Watch the guitar, mate.”

They pack their equipment away in the green room that’s not a green room so much as it is a supply room, with racks and racks of alcohol on one side and cleaning supplies on the other. Niall gets the bartender to swear on the lives of his first two unborn children their equipment will be safe there before they agree to leave them there.

Niall considers hauling his stuff over to Bressie’s in case Harry’s there, but then he spots him. Maybe everything in the bar, everything in the world stops, the moment Niall notices him.

He _came_ , he remembered, and -- he’s talking to someone, quite engrossed in whatever they have to say.

Harry looks up, like the force of Niall’s blatantly awkward stare pulls him up. Niall grins at him easily with a nod of his head, and waits for Harry to tug his ear. But he doesn’t. He turns back to the person he’s sitting next to, speaking quite seriously to them. Niall takes a step back, encourages himself to keep walking, but then Harry stands up and connects with Niall again.

Niall takes a step forward, then another. Harry matches him.

“That was so good!” Harry shouts across the pub. His hands wave in the air as he sidesteps a person or two before they’re together. Niall nearly collides with him, fast as they’re going at each other, and he pulls Harry into a hug. Niall hugs him first, nearly shaking at the impulse to touch him. He doesn’t know what’s come over him.

“You specifically were so good,” Harry tells his hair.

“Thanks, mate.” Niall keeps him close for as long as he can stand, because he knows Harry isn’t going to pull away first. Harry gives a happy hum, and Niall’s just so glad to have him here, to have him as his ally in the audience tonight.

Niall gets a good look at him finally. Harry’s got a black t-shirt on, three lines of duct tape that read out Paddy Cap Crew in carefully marked capital letters. Somehow, irritatingly, he really makes it work, looks about as effortlessly fashionable as when he wears a ridiculous floral shirt.

“Love that shirt. We’re called the Potatoes this week.”

Harry looks down at his shirt, then up at Niall like he’s not bothered by that in the least. “Then only true fans will get it.”

“Exclusive.”

“Exactly,” Harry agrees. The heat of his direct stare is unnerving. And it’s nothing new. Not that Niall was certain things would change after last week. He’d hoped desperately they wouldn’t, that Harry wouldn’t look at him any differently. And he doesn’t.

He looks, Niall realizes, like he wants something. That sort of focus he gets when he spots someone across the way at Bressie’s he wants to go introduce himself to. The look he gets just before he used to slide away from Niall, onto a bigger and better thing.

Niall blinks and stupidly, anxiously, blurts, “You on the pull tonight?”

Harry tugs at his bottom lip, pinching and pinching until it goes red. “Yeah,” he says, like it’s the final decision of a great debate.

Niall swallows hard. “Good luck. Let me know if you need a rescue.”

Harry nods absently, tugging on his ear.

Niall works his way over to the bar, slides in next to Gerry to start cashing in on his free drink quota for the night. He plays it easy enough, laughing quickly with the lads and ignoring the weight in his chest that he knows he put there himself.

Harry’s his friend, he should just let Harry be his bloody friend, instead of panic reverting back to where they started. He’s beyond just being Harry’s fall back plan. He doesn’t want to be anybody’s fall back plan, he wants to be the first thought. He wants someone to cross the room because they’ve decided they want him and nobody else.

Harry presses his way in next to Niall, like he can’t take a hint. Not that Niall wants him to. Harry keeps fixing him with that stare of his until he says, “Come here often?”

Niall frowns at him. Bressie’s is his local, Harry knows that. “Almost never.”

Harry nods seriously. “Same.”

“You're being weird.”

“Can I buy you a drink?” Harry asks, like he’s not registered that at all.

“I get them… free when I perform,” Niall says slowly before it clicks. “Is this your game? No wonder you need a rescue.”

Harry looks hideously offended. “It’s not -- I’m just like. Nervous.”

“Why? If you need a practice, you should’ve just said. I can work out a few lines for ya.”

“I don’t want a practice.” Harry shifts on his feet. “I want to ask you out and I don’t know how.”

Niall pauses, runs that through his head some three or four times, but somehow it doesn’t make any more sense than it did when it came out of Harry’s mouth. _Get a fucking hold of yourself, you’re getting just what you want,_ Niall tells himself. He deserves this, if someone’s going to give it to him.

Then he says, because he honestly has never been successfully pulled, “Well, give it your best go, we’ll see how I feel.”

“We should take this back to my place,” Harry says, leaned in close to say it smoothly into Niall’s ear. Niall’s eyebrows fly up. That’s one way to give it a go. “I impulse bought this spring form pan on Wednesday, dying to use it. Have you ever made a cheesecake?”

“No.”

Harry pulls back to grin at him. “You want to?”

“I -- yeah.” He really fucking does.

“Good. Get your guitar and meet me out front.”

Niall says a quick goodbye to the lads, gets a minor amount of shit for not staying to pack up the van, then a fair number of jeers when they realize it’s because he’s leaving with someone. Harry grins and waves as Niall works his way back into the green room.

He wonders, for a second, if he’s imagined it. They’re just going back to Harry’s to mess around in his kitchen, it’s what they do. He’s thinking it’s too good to be true when the door opens behind him and Harry slides in.

“I didn’t want to wait for you,” he says and doesn’t wait for Niall’s response. “So, like, you have to tell me first, I think, am I going too far? Like. Can I ask you out? I asked last week, I was asking for myself, like. I didn’t want to ask you out then because you seemed upset, or, not upset, just like. Stressed. And I don’t know if I’ve waited enough time. But the fact of the matter is, I kept going into that pub, but all I wanted was to sit with you. I don’t really want to date anyone else right now. I’d just like to take you out on a date. Or seven. Or thirty.”

Harry exhales, exhausted by the vocal marathon he’s just ran.

For the first time, really, someone’s looking at Niall, who knows all of his secrets and his doubts, and they’re saying, _I want you_. And for the first time, Niall’s looking at someone, and he’s saying, _I want you too_. The decision is easy.

“Harry. I want to go out with you.”

Harry nods, running his fingers over his lips. “Sick.”

“Yeah, sick,” Niall laughs.

“M’gonna date you so well.”

“Yeah?”

“Hardcore,” Harry says, counting off on his fingers. “I’m talking shitty home cooked dinners, farmer’s markets on the weekend, holidays in Blackpool, you wearing my jacket when it gets nippy out.”

“His and his matching floral aprons.”

Harry huffs out a breath, waving a hand in front of his face. “I’m sweating just thinking about it.”

“Shut up,” Niall says, instead of telling himself he can have all that. He wants it and he can deserve it. And for Harry to offer -- it’s a lot.

Niall has his guitar in one hand and Harry’s back pressed against the other as they leave the bar. He’s done that before, he’s pressed a hand to his back, and it feels odd but it also feels like something he could get used to.

Now that they’re in the open, out of the safe, cramped room they’d started in, it feels different. There’s more reality in this bar, on the street than Niall particularly wants to deal with. But it’s there nonetheless.

He’s not going to ask Harry to go celibate the rest of his life, or anything, and Niall has no fucking idea what he can commit to. He stops Harry before they walk over to the line of taxis.

“Is this a bad idea?”

Harry doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

“How d’you know?”

“It’s not supposed to be this easy. But it is.” Harry’d said it before, he said when it’s right it should feel easy, and it does feel easy. Scary easy. Everything they’re throwing each other’s way is taken in stride, and it still feels too good to be true.

“What are you going to do, like -- I can’t promise -- ”

“Me neither,” Harry says, so at least he knows. He knows this could morph into something wrong for the two of them at some point, and he isn’t scared. “How about we start tonight with a strawberry cheesecake?”

“Okay.”

“Then I take you to dinner.”

“Dinner,” Niall allows.

“Somewhere other than Bressie’s.”

“And then what?”

“I dunno,” Harry admits.

Niall hasn’t a clue either. He doesn’t think they’ll be able to figure out until they’re stumbling along the path they’ve put themselves on. They’ll navigate along the way. “One day at a time.”

“Sounds good.”

Niall just has to decide what he wants and what he doesn’t want from this, no different than anything else. When you know, you know. And he knows he wants Harry, for about as long as Harry will want him, for as long as it’s good for the both of them.

\--

It’s good, the third date is good. The cheesecake was good, the dinner was good, this is good. He hasn’t managed to scare Harry off yet.

Niall wonders what it is about what they’re doing now is dating, when it seems to be just something they’d do. Is it the fact that they’re out of Bressie’s, out of Harry’s house? They’re in the world and Harry’s hand is brushing Niall’s like he wants to hold it and when people look at them, maybe they think Niall and Harry are a pair.

The farmer’s market is busy, so they’re pressed close to each other, as they have been at the pub, but it’s not quite the same when Niall thinks he should be touching Harry because he wants to. He has decided he wants to. Niall’s been known to throw an arm around a shoulder or two, he can do this.

Niall gently slides his fingers between Harry’s until they’re laced enough that they’re properly holding hands. Harry stutters in the middle of a sentence to the tomato farmer he’s been interrogating for the better part of three minutes. His cheeks go pink as he looks back at Niall with a helpless grin.

“We’ll take three,” Niall supplies.

Harry pays for his tomatoes with only one hand, stubbornly refusing to make his life easier by recovering his other from Niall’s. Niall doesn’t argue.

Harry’s been noticeably judicious about touching him since Niall’s told him, admitted very quietly that he’d been mortified to have started hugging Niall without asking. Niall had told him if he didn’t want Harry to touch him, he’d have said something, he’d have let Harry know he’d crossed a line.

Niall knows, there’s something innately human about touching and being touched. And he gets it, he knows why that level of vulnerability and trust feels nice. He just has to talk himself into it sometimes, give himself a running start before he leaps, because whenever he’s felt the need to touch Harry, part of this thing they’re doing, dating, it feels stupid.

Not that touching Harry is stupid, not in theory. It’s more Niall attempting to do so that feels foreign, unwanted.

He’s thought about it, what it’s like to be in a relationship. He’s got enough context from his mates, from movies and music. He can fake the idea of falling in love, falling out of love, enough to write a fair few songs about it. Just because nobody wants to listen to seventeen songs about washing the dishes or getting pissed with your mates on a Friday night.

So he understands what it means to be in a relationship. But he hasn’t got a clue what it means to be in a relationship himself. It doesn’t feel concrete.

Harry feels concrete -- he’s in law school, he’ll be in training, then he’ll be a solicitor. He knows what he wants from a relationship because he’s had one before. It’s just a matter of going after it, because the path is laid out in front of him.

Niall feels nebulous, always playing some sort of guessing game because he doesn’t know what he’s allowed to have. He thinks about it casually, like those drowsy imagines you have before you drift off to sleep, the ones that has him thinking what would happen if his band hit it big. What would happen if he let Harry kiss him.

He thinks about Harry dropping him back at his flat last week, about him lingering at the door but never moving in like he’s going to kiss him. Niall doesn’t have to close the door in his face or anything, but he’s just not sure how long Harry will wait for him. He’s not so sure when these little dreams he’s conjured up could ever become a reality.

Niall knows where his lines are, which parts are inked in and permanent, which ones can be erased and redrawn. He has no idea what Harry’s lines look like.

“D’you miss it?” Niall asks once they’ve stepped away from the tomatoes.

“Tomatoes?”

“Sex.”

Harry stops clear in the middle of the path, the two of them splitting the flow of people like a rock. He looks concerned. “I -- I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“Because you could -- I’ve been thinking, like.” Niall huffs, frustrated that he can’t wrap his mouth around the words. “If you didn’t want to be exclusive. You could go out, like, Fridays or something, to pull. Because I’m not -- I don’t think I can do that.”

“I don’t want to,” Harry says after a long pause. “I like sex. I do, I think it’s loads of fun. But we agreed, right, that that wasn’t all there is to it for us?”

“I know we did.”

“We said we’d take this one day at a time?”

“We did, yeah.”

“Then trust me,” Harry says simply. “I’ll tell you if something changes.”

It shouldn’t be that easy. And it’s not going to be. Niall knows that, so he knows he’s always picking at the scab, worrying about what’s coming because what’s happening now is just too good. “Okay.”

“You’ll tell me if something changes on your end?”

“Of course. You know me.” He’s not been able to keep anything from Harry, he’s managed to destroy most of his defenses just because he hasn’t needed them.

“And you know me.”

“I do,” Niall says, but that’s part of the issue. “I just. I don’t want it to get to a point where you’re too worried about being, like, polite to me. So you don’t get what you want.”

He doesn’t want to be the Uber driver who took him to dinner or the greasy guy who feels him up without asking or any of the other of Harry’s greatest hits he’s suffered through just because he didn’t want to be impolite. That might kill Niall on the spot.

“I dunno what to say,” Harry says carefully, “other than this is okay for me right now. Is this okay for you?”

Niall shouldn’t need anything else, he knows that. He knows Harry’s not playing an angle, Harry’s not trying to save Niall from himself or prove that Niall’s been wrong to spend his whole life worrying it could go tits up the second he tries to date someone.

“It’s great,” Niall says. “I want what’s fair for you. This isn’t me asking you to be a good person. Because, like, I know what I want.”

Harry raises his eyebrows, attempting to look innocent. But he’s not looked innocent once, not in the entire time Niall’s known him. “Is it me?”

“Yeah, it’s you.”

Harry looks surprised, a hand going to cover his open mouth. “How fun. I want you too.”

Niall rolls his eyes, but tempers it by wrapping his arms around Harry carefully, pulling him into a hug, the first one since Harry’s come to his gig. Harry sinks into it slowly, until they click together.

Everything about Niall’s decision in that moment feels definitive, concrete, even if the future feels nebulous. In Harry’s arms in the middle of the farmer’s market, Niall knows enough that he can quickly, quietly redraw his lines around Harry, tie the end of his rope to Harry’s.

\----

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! If you need me, I am [here](http://wickershire.tumblr.com).


End file.
